DILLON – City leaders in Dillon are confident its ambitious $800,000 renovation to Jaycee Park will begin this summer.
“We’re at about 62 percent right now, so we’re still working on getting some money for this project, but we hope to have all that secured and we’re hoping to break ground this summer. Not hoping, we’re going to break ground this summer,” said restoration committee member Wendy Dumke.
The park has been in the heart of Dillon since the mid-70s, and this will be the first major upgrade in many years.
“A large playground, we’re going to have a 60 by 90 splash pad with unique features and also an amphitheater,” Dumke said.
Rayann Sutton of the same committee added, “Our goal is to bring people to downtown Dillon, more people together, people can drop their kids off at the park to play and maybe they can walk around downtown, do some shopping visiting, just to get to know our town.”
Local school children also were able to give their input about what they want to see at the new park.
“So they drew pictures, we had lots of ideas, we talked to them all morning at the school and that afternoon the designers sat in a room by the principal’s office and drew up the design for our playground,” said Erin Hughes, who is overseeing the playground restoration at the park.
Thanks to a generous donation from a local rancher, the site of the former tennis courts is now going to be a splash pad, and kids could be playing and splashing in this by July.
“Phyllis and John Erb are local ranchers and they donated $275,000 for our splash pad that we have been working on for a number of years,” Dumke said.
In addition to donations, many citizens will donate their skills to help build the park this summer.
